Birjan has a degree in Business & Political Science and is a graduate of the Heritage Foundation's Leadership Fellowship Academy. He is also the co-founder of The Providence Networks Foundation, a nonprofit designed to serve at-risk youth globally, and is a research analyst in Morningstar's Development Program. As you will hear in this conversation, Birjan is also a strong proponent that Christian, conservative values are critical to allow America to flourish. Much of this is rooted in Birjan's early life, where he was born into a Bulgarian orphanage under harsh conditions, but was adopted at the age of 2 into a conservative family, which was instrumental in his faith & political formation.

I was excited to speak to Birjan, among other reasons, because of how passionate he is about his values (faith, family, and freedom). Any time someone has spent a lot of time thinking about what means most to them and has reached some strong conclusions about it, I find that extremely interesting. I should say too, coming on to a show like this, where the premise is to question, pressure test, and dig deep into the guest's values can be difficult--particularly in today's social climate. I think it takes a lot of courage to come on and speak about your views and have a good faith discussion to openly explore them.

Through much of our discussion, I wanted to try and understand Birjan's values, but maybe as importantly, I wanted to understand their application today. As you might glean from the discussion, Birjan has some political aspirations and has a strong viewpoint about the issues America faces. I wanted to discuss and understand how his Christian values were underpinning those views. I wanted to understand how he thought faith has worked to help our country (and the world) thrive throughout history, but also discuss how it may have failed at times. So we discussed American history and if there was ever an "ideal" period where we got it all "right." We also discussed if there is an inherent conflict between democracy and Birjan's values/beliefs.

This is one of those conversations where it can be very easy, on both sides of the political/societal spectrum, to listen to this conversation and draw a very quick/simple conclusion. My hope for this episode and the podcast is that, in some small way, it demonstrates a more complex, but more beneficial, path where we actually take the time to deeply listen/hear each other. Where even if we don't agree, we figure out a way to better understand the other person because without that understanding I think the odds of us progressing forward are much lower.